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Something in the Water
Don’t let a little sewage scare you : Source: Added Feature from City Paper's Health and Fitness Guide from 6/22/2006, Writer: Bill O'Driscoll Water seeks its own level and so, apparently, does uncertainty about how dirty Pittsburgh’s waterways are. “People are always like, ‘Is it safe to go in the river, will I get sick?’” reports Adam Amrhein, who mans the Kayak Pittsburgh rental stand beneath the Roberto Clemente Bridge. But even when Amrhein tells patrons there’s a river-water advisory — thanks to sewage overflows during wet weather — nobody ever turns around and goes home. As regards small-craft boating, fishing, even swimming, that seems about where Pittsburgh’s at. Acknowledging the ick factor, we ask what’s up. Then we dive in anyway. And in fact, for most people, most of the time, there’s little to worry about. While local aquatic life remains hindered by such things as agricultural runoff and acids draining from mines, the biggest problem for human recreation is those overflows, which happen because of aged sewer systems in which storm water runs through the same pipes as raw sewage. When it rains even lightly (or when snow melts), everything mixes together into surges too big for treatment facilities to handle, and the waterways are anointed with poop. This happens often. On average, about half the days during boating season (May 15-Sept. 30) find the Allegheny County Health Department flying orange “combined sewer overflow” flags at 35 marinas, locks and dams (see www.achd.net). During 2004, the worst year of the 11 since the warning system began, 91 percent of the season was flagged. Still, according to the health department Web site, all that means is river users should “minimize water contact,” especially if they have weakened immune systems or open cuts or sores. Given the rivers’ powers of dilution, some regard even that approach as needlessly cautious. “A healthy adult can swim in sewage-infested water,” says John Lucadamo, program director for the nonprofit Venture Outdoors. Lucky thing, perhaps — 3 Rivers 2nd Nature, a Carnegie Mellon-sponsored project to help the region reconnect to its waterways, found that the region now has 140 river access points, including swimming holes. Fish manage pretty well too — or at least much better than they used to. As recently as the mid-1960s, “The lower Monongahela didn’t support any macrobiotic life,” says local aquatic biologist Mike Koryak. But sewage treatment (dating from the late ’50s), pollution controls, the decline of heavy industry and a drop in coal mining (and hence in acid-mine drainage) meant that by the time of a 1973 survey, says Koryak, the Mon welcomed 15 species of fish. Recent years have marked the return of the mayfly — the kind of sensitive invertebrate life only reasonably healthy rivers can support. Meanwhile, Tri-Anglers, the Venture Outdoors fishing club, reports hooking about 30 species in the waters of Point State Park. Whether to eat those fish is trickier. The state Department of Environmental Protection http://www.depweb.state.pa.us has a complete fish-consumption advisory chart: Mercury is a problem, as are PCBs (an industrial toxin) and chloradane (a commercial pesticide). While they’re no longer in use, these toxins have settled in the river bottom and will be seeping into the food chain for years to come. Beyond the county’s 90 miles of rivers, its 2,025 miles of streams are a widely varied story. For instance, 3 Rivers 2nd Nature found that many streams are filthy even in dry weather, due largely to runoff and sewer leakage. Like combined-sewer overflows, such leakages are technically illegal. But they’re also pervasive and costly to fix. So while 83 local communities are operating under a 2004 consent decree with federal regulators, so far that’s just meant remedial repairs, mapping sewers and monitoring flow. Major fixes are years away, says John Schombert, who’s guiding the effort as head of the Three Rivers Wet Weather Demonstration Project. Ironically, many of the best river-access points are adjacent to sewer outflows, which sometimes even provide concrete steps. Tim Collins, another 3 Rivers 2nd Nature researcher, emphasizes that Pittsburghers literally and figuratively ceded control of the rivers to private industry a century ago, and have only recently begun reclaiming the riverbanks. Completing that reclamation, he says, requires a change in awareness: “We must find a way to make water-quality information a regular part of the daily news.”